[Paul]

Want to see what happens when you don’t know much, but one of the things you don’t know is what you don’t know……

How to clean granite, or how not to, you decide… Brought to you by the Tominator, teacher extroidnaire of link imbedding techniques and general seer and trusted advisor to the techno challenged.

The guy is pretty decent, just that someone should take his keyboard away, just leave him with a mouse so he stays out of trouble.

[Jeff Matthis]

Al,

It’s amazing how often the Stone crowd throws the first rock and then accuses you of not playing nice. I’ve really enjoyed caching up an all of this, but you’re keeping me up way to late.

I don’t know many stone fabricators but the ones that I do are reasonable and likeable guys. I’ve been meaning to find out if they have been following all of this. I do know that they have a passion for what they do but don’t mislead their clients. I think stone is great and hope to some day have the ability to add it to my business. But it’s funny to read how some of them just can’t say that not all stone is created equal and that they insist that all stone is maintenance free.

I did a mixed counter top job for my sister in-law, Stone island with cook top and a vent that rises up out of the stone. The fabricator did an awesome job, looks great. I fabricated the rest of the kitchen. She found a hand made farm sink some where and insisted that it sit proud of the counter in both planes. It was a real pain, not a straight edge on it but looks great. The two surfaces look fantastic together. Two days after the install she left a banana peal on the stone top for about an hour, sure enough it stained. Well she called the stone guy and he came out and worked on it. He got most of it out but not all. The color and pattern of the stone actually hides it quite a bit. Most people don’t notice it, but she does.

Jeff

Moe-Mac Construction

We’re in the counter intelligence business

[Tom M]

Jeff,

I always liked the idea of mixed materials for kitchen tops. I think you need a fairly decent sized kitchen to pull it off, but a stone island with cooktop or range, for heat resistance, and wall and sink tops from solid surface, with a coved splash for hygiene win big time in my book.

The thing about stone is, because the difference in the properties of various species, you can argue and debate almost any point. Some stones are tighter and less porous, so they will use those to prove the porosity point, some are harder than others, so they point to those for scratch resistance, same for chemical resistance, heat, etc. Very few posts I have read make a distinction between the species.

What the industry needs is a separate chart that shows which stone types are good or bad for what problems or situations which may arise. Some stones can take better overhangs, some stones can’t. Some stones need sealing often, some don’t. Where the intellectual dishonesty comes is when a customer has a particular problem or concern and a stone fabber makes a generic statement to cover all points, when they might be talking about different stones in the same discussion.

[Tom M]

Al,

Thanks for the compliment.

You did, as usual, a great job fisking the post.

I think the customer would be overwhelmed by it, but you were called out and you responded. What you (and me – big time) need to do is figure out how to be thorough, but concise. That’s a problem I don’t think I’ll ever be able to help you with, as I’m worse than you are.

[Gene McDonald]

Tom,

I been wanting to see the comparrison lists of Stone only all along, i registered to get on Stone advice about a week ago and waiting for my approval to get on to suggest they do it, i’ll hang it in my office and keep it for my records.

The same thing i suggest we do for solid surface, i keep repeating myself but i think Mica is more scratch resistant than That dark brown Acrylic that people seem to polish. We should produce comparrison sheets for materials not countertops, thats why the conflict starts and most importantly, the consumer who will look at this comparrison sheet who owns dark acrylic tops hi-polished and scratches white are thinking we are incorrect, but what about polyester that scratches clear, cant even notice had polished for years in my bath, But Acrylic,Blended, POly, Eos, dark and lights, recycled can be an awesome sheet for SS only .I’m already doing one for my website and office, but it is my personal opinion of the ss types. I would also like to see one for stone ,quartz, etc…after this battle is hammered out maybe we can work on something like this rather then countertops in all materials???? just my thoughts i’ll be posting it soon, Do you know SS people who say I wouldn’t recommend that! when a customer picks up a piece of black acrylic and wants it hi-polished for his or her kitchen? I do and that is SS, so what if that gets picked for scratch resistant and testing, we are backing up SS…i just cant, some are better for countertops then others, it just points out that not all SS is the same, so how can we have one column????????gene

[Tom M]

Gene,

Yeah, I agree. Not all solid surface is the same, so the idea of lumping them together is complicated. I think though, that the differences between the materials, ATH aside, is no where near as complicated as stone. I don’t mean marble versus granite versus soapstone vs. tile, either. I mean Uba Tuba versus Carioca Gold, etc. Heck, I imagine that you can get the same species, from different quarries, and get different stories on reactions, resistances, etc.

The only problem with a list for each materials is the lack of across the board standards between materials. If darker ATH ss material gets a “D” for scratches and lighter colors get a “B”, is that the same as a “B” versus “A” rating for different stones?

[Ken Horowitz]

What an excellent idea, doing a stone chart. However, the culture of the stoner crowd will make this hard to do in their backyard. It could be done just by researching the threads there and over at findstone.com.

DIfferent opinions cause of different lots of material, even from the same quarry, plus stones sold under different names. Might keep a total of positive comments and negative comments. Start at 10, add a point for good reviews, subtract one for bad reviews.

Let’s do it here, get some volunteers, assigne one color to each volunteer and have them do a search using the name as a keyword, and posting links to back up the comments, good or bad.

[Tom M]

Al,

I think that, first, it either happens over there, or here, but with the most experienced guys carrying the load.

This is one chart that I want to learn. You have done some impressive research in stone, the other stone fabs that grace this site seem to want to try to bridge the gap, they should have a seat at the table.

I think, however, that it first should be done off site. There’s some guys that know stone like I know laminate. I want to hear them in a setting where they do not feel as if they had to defend stone first, then categorize it.

[Fabricator396]

Thanks for the kind words, Moemack.

Tom,

thestoners already did this, called it the black list, but you know what happened after I found it. They will keep it secret if they do one.

Now some of the regular posters that do solid surface, quartz and granite, they would share. The new boys from the SFA won’t be much help.

[Author]

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